How to relax your trapezius muscles Why are your trapezius muscles tight?

　　How should the trapezius muscles be relaxed? This is something that many friends who are practicing trapezius muscles are very concerned about. So what are the specific ways to relax the trapezius muscles? What do you do if you want your trapezius muscles to be less tense? exercise What about the trapezius muscles? The editor will take you to learn more about it!

　　How to adjust trapezius muscle tension

　　As one of the largest skeletal muscles in the human body, it spans the head, cervical spine, thoracic spine and shoulders. “It is the largest area, has the most functions, is the shallowest in location, is most susceptible to disease, and is easiest to treat." It is regarded as the first muscle explained in training courses. The first skeletal muscle mentioned in many sports anatomy textbooks is the trapezius. It can be seen that the importance and influence of the trapezius muscle is indeed extraordinary.

　　There are many techniques that can effectively release the trapezius muscle, including massage, compression, stretching, myalgia points, fascial release, cupping, and acupuncture.

　　Causes of tight trapezius muscles

　　1. Maintain posture

　　As mentioned in the previous article, the trapezius muscles need to maintain the stability of the human body posture. Most of the time, our bodies are not in a neutral position, and are even in bad postures such as rounded shoulders and forward head. The trapezius muscles are often passively shortened or lengthened, including ours. sleep When turning over, the trapezius muscles are working. There are also some people who are always used to rotating their heads or sleeping on one side for a long time, and the height of the pillow is not appropriate. The trapezius muscle will also be elongated on one side and shortened on the other side during sleep. Many people's stiff neck is partly caused by spasm of the trapezius muscle.

　　2. Respiratory factors

　　Many people’s breathing patterns tend to be chest breathing, especially female . When inhaling, due to a series of reasons such as the weakening of the diaphragm, changes in the position of the pelvis, insufficient opening and closing of the ribs, and lack of good abdominal pressure, excessive contraction of the trapezius, scalene, and sternocleidomastoid muscles causes the scapula to lift up or try to help open the thorax. This causes the upper trapezius muscle to contract frequently and become tense. In fact, people with breathing pattern problems often have abnormal tension in the muscles around the neck.

　　3. Tight neck flexors

　　Modern people often lower their heads when using computers, reading books, or playing with mobile phones. Over time, the muscles on the front side of the neck that have the function of flexing the head and neck are relatively tense, such as the anterior and middle scalene muscles, and the anterior part of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. One of the main functions of the trapezius muscle is to straighten the head and neck, so it is in a state of confrontation with the neck flexors for a long time, causing tension.

　　4. Thoracic spine curvature

　　Since the trapezius muscle spans all thoracic vertebrae, whether the curvature of our thoracic spine becomes larger or smaller, or it bends sideways, it will cause varying degrees of concentric or eccentric tension in the trapezius muscle.

　　5.Sports mode

　　Contemporary people generally lack exercise, especially scientific exercise. Disturbed movement patterns are also a common cause of upper trapezius muscle tightness. For example, when we want to take something from the table, the main joint movement is shoulder flexion at about 90 degrees. The agonist muscles that complete this joint movement should be the pectoralis major and deltoid muscles. But many people do habitually shrug their shoulders first and then do shoulder flexion. This seemingly unnecessary move will also cause our upper trapezius muscles to take on a lot of redundant work over time.

　　Trapezius muscle exercise method

　　1. shrug

　　You only need to hold the handle of the equipment with both hands and move your shoulders towards your ears as much as possible. When your shoulders are raised to the highest point, do peak contraction and pause for a while. Then, slowly lower your shoulders. When you reach the lowest point, you will feel your shoulders fully stretched downwards. The range of motion (how far your shoulders move during shrugging and lowering) for this exercise is very small. The real function of shrugging is to contract the muscles, that is, the muscles are exercised and strengthened against gravity. This has nothing to do with turning the shoulders forward and backward. So, when doing this exercise, make sure to move your shoulders up and down.

　　2. Upright rowing

　　Another exercise that strengthens your trapezius muscles is the upright row. You can feel your traps contracting as you pull the barbell up toward your chin, which is the key to this exercise. (Reference website: Fitness bar)